


The Last Thing He Asked of Me

by LAHH



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-02
Updated: 2008-02-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 17:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LAHH/pseuds/LAHH
Summary: Snape muses on what Dumbledore has asked of him. Just a random little one-shot drabble that I thought of. Imported from fanfiction.net.





	The Last Thing He Asked of Me

He asked many things of me over the years. I do not deny his right to – I owe him my life after all, and more than that, my soul. He even asked me for my forgiveness once, on a night as stormy as the one where I first betrayed – no, exposed, the Death Eater activities. He was already dead, and by my own hand, and yet it was him asking me for forgiveness. Apparently he had reflected - portraits have a tendency to do that rather a lot – and he felt it unfair of him to ask me to kill him. After all, it had been him in his favouritism of the Marauders that had first turned me on my path to the Dark, to the acts that I now atone for.

But his thoughts were ridiculous. An old man's folly, one of his favourite phrases. For sure, I had been angered by the lack of expulsion resulting from that prank that had so nearly cost me my life. But his decision was, in the end, the wiser. Not only did the Order need Black, as proficient in Defence of - and no doubt Practice of – the Dark Arts as I, but leaving him with his friends for them to reproach him was inspired. Potter, for all my hatred of him, and all his egotistical ways, had morals nonetheless and was angered by his friend's thoughtlessness. Lupin who had always seemed so meek, so quiet, erupted with a force that few would have predicted. A formidable temper, held admirably in check. Even when I exposed him, he did not unleash it. It turns out Lupin was unhappy at Black's attempts to make him a murderer, not to mention the fact another student now knew of his 'secret'. I have never seen the Marauders as divided as they were in those few months after the event. No doubt I reminded them of that, and that inspired them to hate me.

Lupin saw me as an untrustworthy holder of his secret and a reminder of what his curse could so easily influence him to do.  
Potter saw me as the first person to have succeeded at all in breaking up the Marauders.  
Black just despised me, and I him.

They soon became close friends again, indeed showing no signs of the anger that had flared so briefly - the approaching exams and a still-enduring hatred of myself no doubt spurring the renewal of friendship on - but they were never that divided again, not until the suspicions of a traitor amongst them tore them apart, and then, of course, the death, the murder of Potter and Lily. My Lily Evans, most beautiful of all. I can never think of her as Lily Potter. It transcends my understanding how she could have married that man. I barely noticed the arrest of Sirius Black amongst my grief. I wanted to attach my guilt to him, but I could not. It was my actions that had killed her, my words that had betrayed her to her death. And she need not have died. But she did, dying to protect the boy. Every time I see him, I see so many things. Potter, of course, that bastard who was unworthy of my flower. Lily's death also, the only reason he lives and the only reason she died. But her eyes are there too, so bright, always ready to protect another student.

That was one of the things he asked of me. To stay and teach at the school, though Harry was there. To protect Harry. To face those eyes every day. It was hard, and I'm sure I took it out on the boy.

It wasn't the first thing he asked of me though. That was simply 'Tell Me'. A harder request than it sounds, telling those eyes of the terrible deeds my hands had done, the blood that stained them, the destruction my potions had wreaked. I couldn't meet his eyes as I did. But then he asked me to go back. To spy on those among whom I had once revelled in the glory of wizarding blood. And to report to him the acts they indulged him, to watch those atrocities and take part in them once more.

  
I managed though. And I thought my task over, once the light I lived for died. Until Harry's fourth year. And then, yet again, he asked me to go back. To return to a Dark Lord who suspected me of treachery and to whom I must prove my loyalty. A wizard to whom no explanation would be sufficient, to whom punishment was the only recourse when one's loyalty had not been as open as that madwoman Lestrange. I went. I know I took out my frustration at the sudden recommencing of those meetings on Black, and so I probably helped him towards his death. So I caused Potter to lose the third of his parental figures.

And then the worst was asked of me. To kill the fourth parental figure. To murder the only man who had trusted me. I understood why. Draco's soul was, as yet, unruined, not like mine, already so blackened and cracked that I sometimes wondered if it was still there.

It was not, as I thought, the last thing that was to be asked of me. He asked me to take on Hogwarts, to attempt to protect the students. I tried, for sure, but the brutality of the Carrows cannot be restrained. When I see the scars on Longbottom's face... poor student though he was, he proved himself better than I.

And to think, Harry forgave me. Like Dumbledore in that respect. He called his son after me. Put my name next to that of the greatest wizard who ever lived. He ordered my portrait to be put in the Headmaster's Office, but I declined and asked it destroyed. Dumbledore and Potter between them convinced me against it. The future Headteachers had to know, and to inform their students, they insisted. Had to remember that treating Slytherins like scum could spawn those like me, Death Eaters and other murderers. Backfired on him of course, when his son was sorted into Slytherin. But Albus Severus became the third Slytherin Headmaster. And proved himself worthy of the title. He went further than any before in destroying the prejudice against my house. He sits in the office now. The worthiest man to sit there since Dumbledore himself, though I have never told him so. I speak to him, and indeed to anyone, very little at all. I have enough thoughts to contend with.

Harry told him once that he should be proud to carry the names of two of Hogwarts' greatest Headteachers…but it is I who am proud to carry the name of Hogwarts second greatest Headteacher, and the best Slytherin in the history of magic.


End file.
